


My Name is Monica

by Bunney



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-22 06:40:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/910108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bunney/pseuds/Bunney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Monica and Wendell Wilkins's peaceful lives are upended by a visitor they never expected or wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Name is Monica

**Author's Note:**

> I can't imagine how horrible Hermione must've felt to have altered her parents' memories, but I've often wondered how they felt when they got them back.

  
**Title:** My Name is Monica  
 **Author:** Krissy  
 **Rating:** G  
 **Word Count:** 2097  
 **Warnings:** Lots of angst; spoilers for Deathly Hallows.  
 **Summary:** Monica and Wendell Wilkins's peaceful lives are upended by a visitor they never expected or wanted.  
 **Author's Notes:** I can't imagine how horrible Hermione must've felt to have altered her parents' memories, but I've often wondered how they felt when they got them back.

Monica Wilkins loved her kitchen. It was a bright, open room, decorated in shades that mimicked the seashore that she could see from the French doors facing the eastern sun. Gauzy white curtains fluttered in the breeze and thick rag rugs lay on the bleached plank floors. Monica had long desired a cottage by the sea (or thought she did, but she really didn't remember) and this house, with its tinkling wind chimes and the sound of the surf that lulled her to sleep at night, was as perfect as she could have ever wanted.

She heard the creak of the floorboards above, then Wendell's heavy footfall on the stairs. Walking over to the stove, she turned on the gas under the kettle and fetched the loaf of fresh bread she'd purchased at the market yesterday from the breadbox.

"Honey, do you want Vegemite or jam for your toast?" she called out.

"Can't I have both?"

Monica turned as Wendell came up behind her, his tanned arms snaking around her waist. She bestowed a kiss on him, and then ruffled his graying curls. "Both, it is. Let's have breakfast on the terrace; I've already put your paper and juice on the table."

He gave her a squeeze around the middle, and then stepped out on the terrace overlooking their small strip of private beach. Monica smiled fondly at him as he stretched, then took up his paper and settled down to read.

She had just poured the hot water into the teapot when the doorbell chimed. Startled, Monica set the kettle back on the stove and walked into the lounge. She paused in the doorway, uncertain. She and Wendell rarely had visitors, even though they had been in Australia for over two years. Or, at least, she thought it might be two years; she didn't quite remember when they had moved here from...well, wherever it was they had lived before.

The doorbell rang again and Monica could see the outline of a woman standing on the porch. Looking back over her shoulder, she wondered if she should call Wendell to the door instead.

"Oh, how silly!" she said to herself. Before she could change her mind, she strode over to the door and opened it.

*****

Wendell watched the girl over the top of his reading glasses. She was young, perhaps 19 or 20, with a great abundance of long, dark hair and eyes that held a lifetime of weary sadness. _Far too much sadness for a child her age,_ he thought. He noticed that she had a nice smile, with even, white teeth that made him swell with an odd bit of pride. Why he'd feel that way, he wasn't quite sure.

He smiled kindly at her. "I'm sorry, dear, what did you say your name was?"

She blinked at him, her eyes bright with unshed tears. Wendell was struck with a nearly overwhelming desire to pull the girl into his arms and let her cry out whatever grief had such a grip on her heart.

"Granger. Hermione Granger," she said.

Monica's fingers were tapping a nervous beat on the wrought iron garden table. "Granger," she repeated, then looked at Wendell. "Do we know any Grangers?"

Wendell thought that maybe they did, but wasn't sure where or when he might have met them.

"I'm afraid I don't remember. The name sounds vaguely familiar, though. So, Miss Granger...what brings you here today?"

The young woman took a deep breath and folded her hands in her lap. "I came to see you, actually. I'm from England, you see, and..." She faltered, glancing at Monica with an expression that bordered on fear.

Wendell reached over and grasped Monica's hand, curling his fingers over hers to still her nervous tic. "England. I've thought, perhaps, that we came from England."

Hermione leaned forward. "What do you remember?"

"What makes you think we've forgotten?" Monica asked, her voice sharp and angry. She was more troubled by their occasional lapses in memory, and preferred to not think of it at all.

Hermione drew back, her smile falling away, leaving her pretty face anxious and bearing a stronger resemblance to Monica's than Wendell would have thought possible. "I'm not implying anything wrong, Mrs. Wilkins. I'm just here to help."

"We don't even know you! Why would you come here to help us? Did someone tell you...?" Monica asked, growing more agitated. Wendell squeezed her hand.

"Monica, please. As she's said, she's only here to help," Wendell said, although he too wondered how this girl knew that anything was wrong at all or that they were in need of assistance.

"I don't want to frighten you," Hermione said as she rose from her seat. Wendell frowned and instinctively moved closer to Monica, his arm going around her shoulders. He watched as the young woman withdrew a slim wooden stick from inside her jacket. It was intricately carved with strange symbols and something about it sparked a touch of fear, a thread of uncertainty and worry about a small girl with long hair and excited eyes...

Before he could think to move or to put himself between the girl and Monica, Hermione pointed the stick at them and whispered a word in a language that Wendell thought might be Latin.

*****

Monica looked up at Hermione. "Have you come down for tea, then?"

Hermione shook her head, confused. "I'm sorry?"

Monica shrugged out of Wendell's grasp. "I've called you down for tea...I have your...favorite biscuits." She stopped, raising a hand to her forehead. "What have you done, Hermione?"

Setting down her wand, Hermione hurried around the table and knelt at Monica's side. Tentatively, she grasped the woman's hand in her own. "What do you remember?"

"Calling you down for tea...you were in your room. We had argued earlier," Monica said, her awareness sharpening as her altered memories began to reassemble themselves. "You wanted to leave, but you'd only just got home from school."

"Hermione?"

Hermione looked at Wendell and when she saw the gentle expression of hurt and betrayal there, she burst into tears. Monica jerked her hand from Hermione's and stood up.

"What have you done to us?" she cried. "Hermione, what have you done?"

Hermione bent her head, unable to look at her father's stricken expression another minute.

"What I had to do."

*****

Henry Granger sat on the sofa in the lounge, his hands clasped in his lap, his head aching with the overflow of memories that Hermione had set back to rights. He swallowed past the lump in his throat and wondered idly if he should go and see if he could vomit. He didn't think it would take much – bend over the toilet, stick out his tongue, poke at the back of his throat with his finger – but Jeannie was already in the bathroom, the door locked and the water running to mask the sound of her wrenching sobs.

"I'm sorry, Daddy...I was only trying..."

"Be quiet," he said, not unkindly, but with the firmness of an angered father. Hermione fell silent, but he could hear the wet rattle of her breath as she tried to stem the unending flow of tears.

They sat in uncomfortable silence with only the sound of the surf and the call of the seabirds swooping for fish. The muted sound of the toilet flushing preceded Jeannie's return to the lounge.

"I want answers from you," Jeannie said harshly as she sat down next to Henry and looked at a point somewhere over Hermione's right shoulder. Her face was pale, the dark curls at her hairline damp and sticking to her skin. Her hands shook.

Hermione wiped at her eyes, struggling to contain her emotion. Despite his anger, Henry's heart went out to her. He made a motion to move towards Hermione but Jeannie's hand clamped down on his arm, her fingernails digging into his skin.

"No," she said. "I want to know why you did this to us, Hermione."

"You were in danger. There was a wizard...a very dark, evil wizard called Tom Riddle. He went by the name Voldemort."

Henry frowned. "I remember. His name was often in those newspapers you'd bring home at Christmas."

Hermione nodded. "Yes. Yes. Harry...you remember Harry...his parents were murdered by Voldemort when he was a baby and..."

Jeannie slashed her hand angrily. "We know this already! We know this from before. Tell us what we don't know!"

"Mum, I'm trying..."

"No, Hermione, you really aren't. You're...you're deflecting...you're trying to sidetrack..."

"No, I'm not! Mum, why are you being so..."

Jeannie jumped to her feet, her face angrier than Henry had ever seen it. "Jeannie, please hear her out. She's trying to explain."

He drew her back down to the sofa, wrapping his arm around her rigid shoulders. He nodded at Hermione. "Go on."

*****

"How long have we been gone from ho- England?" Hermione's father asked. He was looking at her with an expression of the deepest disappointment, but even that was better than the thinly veiled rage in her mother's.

"A little over two years. I performed the memory alteration on July 7, 1997. Today's November 19..."

"We know what day it is," Jeannie said.

Hermione willed her mother to look at her with something other than the simmering hate that was beginning to well closer to the surface. She pressed her fist to the center of her chest, massaging her breastbone as if it could ease the heartbreak. The pain was physical; it spread out like malignant tentacles, stretching all the way to her fingertips, the soles of her feet, the top of her aching head.

Hermione understood then that a person could die of a broken heart if the pain of it grew any more acute.

"Our practice...our dental practice, Hermione. What happened to it?" Henry asked, although he felt he knew the inevitable answer.

"It closed. When you never returned, it closed. I-I don't know what happened to your employees."

Jeannie gave a bitter bark of laughter. "You ruined our livelihood. Our reputations."

"I saved your lives, Mum!"

Jeannie looked at her at last and Hermione recoiled from her mother's tangible fury. "You _ruined_ our lives, Hermione! You and...and...your _magic!_ "

Hermione could take no more. She launched herself out of her seat and fell to her knees in front of Jeannie. She tried to take her hands, but Jeannie shrank back into the sofa. "Don't touch me!"

"Mummy, please! I love you so much and I did all of it to keep you safe!" Hermione wept. "Please don't hate me! I love you so much and it broke my heart to do it!"

Jeannie wrenched her hands out of Hermione's desperate grip and lurched to her feet. Hermione grabbed at the hem of her sundress and Jeannie pulled away with so much force that the seam parted at the waist.

"I said, don't touch me! You...God! You repulse me, Hermione!"

Bending double, Hermione screamed into her hands.

*****

"Perhaps it would be best if you left," Henry said softly, patting Hermione's head where it rested against his knee. "Go home to England."

She looked up, her blotchy and tear-stained face despairing. "Aren't you coming with me? Daddy, I came here to bring you home!"

"Hermione, what have we to return to? Here...at least we have a new life, a home that we love. We have jobs. We have an identity. There...we have nothing."

As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them. The hopeful light in his daughter's eyes faded, replaced by a grief that should only be reserved for the dead. "And I'm not enough. I'm nothing."

He stroked her hair away from her face. "Not nothing. You are _different_. You aren't the daughter I knew. She would have trusted us to do the right thing. She wouldn't have hurt us like you have. I loved her."

"Oh, Daddy, no. Please, please...I love you. Please come home."

He listened to her litany of pleas until they were swallowed by soul deep sobs that brought Henry to tears. He reached down and pulled Hermione into his arms, cuddling her like she was eleven years old again and still his little girl and not a witch with power beyond his reckoning.

*****

Hermione insisted on leaving her address with Henry, but when she left the cottage and vanished at the end of the drive, he crumpled up the paper and tossed it into the bin. He stared at the spot where she'd disappeared for several eternal moments.

"Wendell."

Henry looked around. Jeannie had changed clothes and washed her face. She looked tired, blank. "Yes, Jeannie?"

"My name is Monica."

Henry nodded. "Yes. It is."

~fin~


End file.
